Quotes About Race

I spent my life navigating systems built upon me - a black child in America - not making it out.

I talk about race a lot. It's been my work ever since I came out of acting school. But it's true that in a way talking about race is a taboo. Because so many of our debates about race have to do not with race but with what we are willing to see, what we will not see and what we don't want to see.

It was definitely during the Obama administration that talking about racism, or calling it out, suddenly seemed taboo. It seemed like talking about race was somehow summoning the evil of racism.

I always recommend signing up to a race or charity event if you're finding it tough to get going. I love it because it means I'm training for a reason. Being accountable is the best fear tactic for making you get fit.

I can say when it comes to championships it's a tactical race and normally you don't have a pacesetter who can set a pace for fast times. That is why you see that obviously we fall around 1:43 because that is the most favorable one can run from the front.

We're very clear in the race that priority will be given to the lead car and more risk will be taken with the tail car. Sometimes that will work out, sometimes it won't, but it's very clear going into the event that those are the rules of engagement.

What I know about this world is that white people will take care of themselves. And what I have learned is that if you are where they are on an equal basis, they cannot take care of themselves without taking care of you.

We must never forget that Singapore is home for all races and this harmonious relationship must not be taken for granted.

For two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds. In Obama, they have both.

The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.

Claudia Rankine's book-length poem 'Citizen' was nominated for National Book Critics Circle awards in the categories of poetry and criticism. It is one of the most devastating takes on American culture I have read in a long time, laying bare the stakes of being black in a country long ambivalent about our presence here.

If you look at shows like 'Def Comedy Jam' in its heyday, there were so many really funny, talented black comics that never would have gotten on that show because they just weren't doing comedy that fit that mold.

In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity.

There are many people of color who are very talented.

Is there nothing the prodigiously talented Ann Patchett can't do? She's channeled the world of opera, Boston politics, magic, unwed motherhood, and race relations, creating scenarios so indelible, you swear they are right outside your door.

Obviously a decision was made to elevate both Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo, who are two of the most exciting talents on the periphery of Formula 1, into race seats at Toro Rosso.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they're being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I'm black. I tell them, 'Don't stop now. If I shot somebody you'd mention it.'

Just about any story we think about doing, whether we've read it in a newspaper, heard it on the radio or come upon it through word of mouth - by the time you get there, every other network, cable station and talk show is already racing to the scene.

The ancient Greek philosophers were blonde and blue-eyed and, even then, talked about how their race was mixed with others and how this affected their society negatively. When there were no more natural blondes and no more blue eyes in Greece, they incidentally stopped producing great philosophers.

When I was 16 or 17, I saw Lenny Bruce being taken to jail. They took him off stage because he talked about race.

On one hand, I think it's very important to talk about race and talk about gender, because if it's not talked about, then we won't progress. What I have a problem with is when it becomes another form of tokenization, of shrinking me into a symbol instead of a multilayered, female Asian artist.

When you are honest in your comedy, you have to acknowledge the world that you're in. Through a comedic voice, you're talking about what needs to be talked about, whether it's race relations or politics or anything that's happening on a global or an American scale.

I've gotten in trouble with every race you can imagine. They say, 'I can't believe you talked about this - you're racist.' And I say, 'How can I be racist? Isn't racism exclusionary? If all of you are offended, that means I'm including every race in my jokes.'

I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age.